


The Only Way Out [is Through]

by Vashti (tvashti)



Category: Pitch Black (2000)
Genre: Alternate Ending, But there might be something there, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Misses Clause Challenge, Missing Scene, Mostly Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 14:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Maybe, probably, she didn’t deserve to live.  Probably, maybe, Riddick hadn’t deserved to live.  But Jack?  The Imam?  His wards?  Shazza and Zeke?  Even that idiot Ogilvie…  The Captain… Owens…  The passengers who’d been lost to space…  The passengers she’d tried to dump and had died anyway…  Even Johns, bastard that he was, hadn’t deserved to die in the dark.But she wasn’t going to die here after everything else.  Not when someone—maybe the Imam’s Allah, maybe her grandmother’s Jesus, maybe a random, uncaring universe that used micro-meteors to kill the innocent with one hand and cave-bugs to save the guilty with the other—had just given her a chance.  Carolyn wasn’t going to waste it.





	The Only Way Out [is Through]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



> I had wanted to write a version of this story back in 2012/2013 for the NYR challenge, but never got it together. Thank you so much for this prompt that allowed me to revisit this idea and build it from the ground up. I hope you enjoy.

"No!" Carolyn shrieked. One of the bigger creatures had her around the waist. Had ripped her away from Riddick. Riddick who had been hurt fighting one off those bastards so they could save Jack, the Imam and his last remaining kid. The kid who'd made it out of the valley of death and died anyway.

Now they were all going to die: Carolyn in the jaws of this creature, Riddick alone in the rain, and Jack and Imam waiting for either one of them to come back.

The thoughts raced through Carolyn's mind, disjointed nightmares and imaginings as she shrieked "No! No! No!" for as long as she had breath.

They hadn't come this far! They hadn't fought this hard! They hadn't lost so many, too many!, people who should have lived. Their faces flashed with the rain and the lightning and glimpses of creatures in the dark.

She still screamed into the night but now, she thought, the monsters were screaming back.

Maybe, probably, she didn’t deserve to live. Probably, maybe, Riddick hadn’t deserved to live. But Jack? The Imam? His wards? Shazza and Zeke? Even that idiot Ogilvie… The Captain… Owens… The passengers who’d been lost to space… The passengers she’d tried to dump and had died anyway… Even Johns, bastard that he was, hadn’t deserved to die in the dark.

Their faces joined the fractured images and thoughts flashing through Carolyn’s mind as the creature all but ripped her spine out her back, dragging her through the settlement. She wanted to demand that it kill her already, dammit!, but she couldn’t catch enough breath.

Then what little she had was knocked out of her.

Carolyn tumbled, rolled, end over end into an ungraceful, painful heap. It took her long seconds to get her wits about her, and longer seconds still to guess what had happened. The screeching and sudden spatter of hot “rain” were her main clue.

Another of those crazy anchor-headed hell-creatures had attacked the one that was hauling her away to feed its babies, or whatever. Now they were fighting it out. Over her? Over breeding rights? Turf? One anchor-head stole another anchor-head’s man? Carolyn couldn’t guess, and she sure as hell didn’t care to find out.

Belly to the ground, she crawled… _away_. She had no idea where in the settlement she was. Only the smooth concrete currently scraping up her palm and the soft skin of her inner arms told her that she was in the settlement at all. The halo of glow-worm light wasn’t nearly as impressive—

Carolyn stopped and stared. She almost laughed.

She was still. Holding. The bottle. Of frickin’ glow worms!

She didn’t know how. Didn’t really care. But she _wasn’t_ going to die _here_ after everything else. Not when someone—maybe the Imam’s Allah, maybe her grandmother’s Jesus, maybe a random, uncaring universe that used micro-meteors to kill the innocent with one hand and cave-bugs to save the guilty with the other—had just given her a chance. Carolyn wasn’t going to waste it.

She almost cried. Maybe she was crying. The rain was still pounding, but some of what was on her face felt unnaturally hot. And across her shoulders. And a long tear down the back of her left leg she could now feel. She remembered Death Valley. The hell-creatures were still fighting over her head.

She pushed herself up onto her knees.

Carolyn didn’t dare look up. It was already taking all her strength of will not to curl up into ball in the middle of wherever she was with the bottle of glow worms held up like a night-light against the monsters in the dark, and wait. For what? A rescue? For morning to come? When she had been little, and her family had called her Linny, she had believed in the monsters in the dark. Some part of Carolyn never stopped believing that little Linny had been right. It was one of the reasons why she’d gone into space. It was one of the reasons she wasn’t going to die here. No one was coming. If she was ever going to see sunlight again, she’d have to chase find it herself.

“Come on,” she growled to herself. “Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeon!”

The two words became a mantra and command: to keep moving, to stop thinking in circles, to stop looking back when the only way out was forward. There was no one back there to help her. Any hope of getting off the planet, or even attempting to survive if she couldn’t do that, was _in front_ of her. She could question her life choices and the wisdom of four-year-olds from the black of space.

 _“Come on!”_ she shouted at herself when her limbs tried to tremble and collapse, crawling along on her belly again. Something was wrong with her inside, in her guts. Everything hurt.

* * *

She was definitely crying now. If the planet’s hellspawn were even a little less driven by instinct, she probably would have already been someone’s dinner. The second one of them survived long enough to look down, they’d see that their tasty morsel had wriggled away.

Or maybe not. All this time she’d been pushing herself, sometimes on her knees, mostly on her belly, it felt like she’d hardly moved at all. And the rain! The rain that would not stop! It was probably washing her scent away and masking the noises she was making—the crying and screeching and cursing the night—but it meant she couldn’t _see_.

She already didn’t know where she was going. She had no idea where the creature was that had taken her, or dropped her. And now for all she knew she was crawling in slow circles.

Carolyn’s arms trembled and her stomach cramped. Her fingers were slick with sweat and rain-water and blood. The bottle of glow worms in her hand was too heavy to hold.

What was she thinking? That she could _crawl_ back to the skiff? And then what? Rescue the Imam and Jack from this godforsaken planet and its hellspawn creatures? By herself?

Carolyn finally gave into the urge to curl around the cold blue light and hide.

_He did not bring us out this far…_

When Carolyn’s eyes opened, it wasn’t to the color-leached, rain-sodden settlement she saw, but the muted warmth of her grandmother’s kitchen. It was her grandmother she heard singing. _“...to take us back again. He brought us out to take us into the promised land.”_

The elderly woman was bustling about as golden sunlight and the scent of baked cinnamon warmed the room. Carolyn curled her bare toes around the narrow wooden dowel connecting her chair’s legs one to the other, silently watching her grandmother bake. Other food was already waiting on the dining table—for supper, Carolyn suddenly remembered. Her grandmother was the only person she knew who called lunch “supper” and actually cooked for the meal.

 _“He did not bring us out this far to take us back again. He brought us out to take us into the promised land._ You’re not gonna sing with me, baby?” Her grandmother asked, turning to look at Carolyn. “I thought you liked this song.”

“Linny’s been in a mood all day, Mama,” Carolyn’s mother said as she breezed into the room. She smelled of fresh laundry and old paper. “Just stubborn all day.”

“Not our Linny,” Carolyn’s grandmother said with some dismay.

“Sorry to tell you, Mama. Wouldn’t back down on hardly anything today.” Carolyn’s mother pulled an apron off the hook on the pantry door, and proceeded to tie it on as she said, “Not wanting to give up on some broken toys. Going after that crazy tomcat that stalks the neighborhood like she could save him. Even picked a fight with the neighbor’s boy over that crazy feral. I don’t know what’s got into you today, Linny,” she said in passing. She took a swipe at Carolyn’s forehead, who didn’t duck fast enough to totally escape the hand. Carolyn scowled.

“But I’ll sing with you, Mama. You know I like that song.”

“This was your mama’s favorite when she was your age, too,” Carolyn’s grandmother confided, before launching back into the song. “ _He did not bring us out this far to take us back again...”_

Carolyn’s mother joined in at the refrain: _“He brought us out to take us into the promised land. Though there be monsters in the land, I will not be afraid. He brought us out to take us into the promised land.”_

Straightening in her chair, Carolyn frowned. “That’s not how it goes,” she said in the high, piping voice she’d had the last time three generations of women had sat in that kitchen together.

The two women sang it again as if they hadn’t heard. _“Though there be monsters in the land, I will not be afraid. He brought us out to take us into the promised land.”_

“That’s not how it goes!” Carolyn insisted.

Her mother huffed, rolling her eyes as she continued to work beside Carolyn’s grandmother. Her grandmother, however, turned kind eyes on her granddaughter. “I know, Linny. But it’s not giants you’re facing, baby, it’s monsters.”

Fire lanced across Carolyn’s back.

* * *

She gasped and rolled over, exposing the light of the glow-worms—and sending a dozen of the smaller creatures fleeing. There were more though. In the tapering rain. And the dark. The glow-worms were enough to keep the bigger ones at bay, but only to the outer edge of the light in her cramping hand.

The rain was tapering, but Carolyn still sucked in too much of it as she caught her breath from the vision she’d just had. Had she fallen asleep? Was she losing her mind? How much was she bleeding inside? Even her inching across the wet concrete had her core trembling.

But she’d already decided, hadn’t she? That she wasn’t going to die here? That she wasn’t going to let anyone else die if she could help it?

She’d already failed so many of the others. The faces of Imam’s ward and Riddick flashed through her mind. They were just the last two. And they were going to stay the last two. She was getting Jack and the Imam off this planet. She was going to do it. She was.

“Then do it,” she growled at herself.

Slowly, careful of her fragile light and hidden wounds, Carolyn levered herself onto her stomach.

“Though…there be…mon…sters…in the land…” Carolyn gasped and growled and crooned to herself as she crawled and sometimes dragged herself across the settlement’s slick concrete. “I. Will. _Not. Be. Afraid_.”

She was dragging her glow-worm bottle now—the creatures keeping pace beside her. Sometimes one or more of the little ones would fly off, bored or attracted by easier prey. Who cared. The bigger ones were more patient. Sometimes she heard a new fight break out. From the little ones? A newcomer? Carolyn couldn’t find it in her to care about them either.

“I…will not…be…afraid,” she told herself.

The blood she felt now was mostly her own. The soft, pale skin of her inner arms wasn’t meant to be dragged across concrete, no matter how smooth. Nearly every muscle trembled from exhaustion.

“Though there…be mons…monsters…in…the…land…”

She rested a few times. She couldn’t help herself—even though she felt the hellspawn creeping closer whenever she did. She needed those moments to gather herself. Those precious few seconds gave her enough strength to actually crawl on her knees for meters at a time, before she was back to dragging herself along.

By the time the rain stopped, Carolyn was panting heavily and the smaller creatures were taking swipes at her lower legs if she slowed for more than a second. The bigger ones were still keeping pace. Her glow-worms were starting to die, probably suffocated from being stuffed in a liquor bottle.

And she was still muttering. Sometimes the words strung together enough to be mistaken for the song from her childhood. Mostly it was a half-coherent mess that only made sense to her.

But there were lights now. Up ahead, closer and farther away than Carolyn could have hoped or wished.

* * *

The skiff was _still there_. The lights were _on_. Someone was probably _alive_ —not just her.

She should probably hurry, and she did try, but whatever was torn up in her, and the exhaustion, would only allow her to go so fast. She did start singing though. Because that was what women in her family did. They sang their joys. They hummed through apprehension. They wailed in mournful antiphony. They sang. And Carolyn has been silently sleeping in the black for too long.

 _“He did not bring us out this far…to take us back…again. He brought us_ out! _to take us into the promised land._

 _“He did not bring us out this…this far to take us…back…again. He-he brought us_ out! _to take us into…the promised…promised land.”_

There, at the edge of the light, Carolyn dared to roll over and take a swipe at the nearest creatures with the heavy glow-worm bottle. It shattered across some hellspawn’s nose, glow-worms scattering.

They screamed.

She finally laughed. _“Though there be_ monster! _in the land, I will not be afraid…”_

It’s a meter, maybe two, before she was once again in front of the nose of the little planet hopper. No rain this time. No righteous indignation. Not much strength left either. Still, she pushed herself up onto her abused knees, shading her eyes against the skiff’s light with a raw and bleeding arm.

 _“He brought me out…”_ Her breathing turned quick shallow heaves. She was losing her mind. She had to be.

 _“He brought me out…”_ she repeated to herself as the vision climbed out of the cockpit and disappeared from her sight. _“He brought me out… He brought me out… He brought me out…”_

 _“To take us into the promised land,”_ a horribly flat bass sang for her, completing the phrase.

Carolyn fell back on her bleeding hands in shock.

Riddick.

“You’re not dead.” Beat up, still streaked with those creatures’ bright blue copper blood, but not dead.

“Said you wouldn’t die for me,” Riddick replied, “so I guess I had to live.” Carolyn thought she could hear in his words the same hollow surprise that she felt.

She struggled to get up, but it was clearly a losing battle. Too many things were wrong. One long stride and Riddick was kneeling beside her. “How?” she asked him.

“You tell me,” he growled back, caging her in his arms like he was angry at her.

Carolyn could feel the way the thick muscles beneath his still rain-wet skin shivered. Not angry then. It wasn’t safe to guess what a man like Riddick was thinking, but he wasn’t angry. She was sure of it. It was of the few things she was sure of.

He shook her. Just a little. Just enough to snap her wits or bring her back into focus. “How did you get here?”

Carolyn held up her raw and bleeding arms. “Crawled. I come from survivors, my people.” Then as an afterthought. “And singers.”

Surprised laughter ripped through him and pulsed into her, making her feel giddy all over again. She was alive. “Jack and Imam?”

Riddick nodded toward the ship over their heads. “In the skiff. C’mon, Sweet Carolyn. Let’s get off this hell hole planet.”

He helped lift her to her feet—then swung her into his arms when she almost crumbled back to the concrete. “They got you good, huh?”

Carolyn grunted, trying not to melt into the warmth and strength around her. They weren’t safe until they were off this rock, and maybe not even then. She couldn’t relax until they were at least surrounded by an enemy they, sort of, understood.

Jack and the Imam were waiting for them at the hatch. The “We thought you were dead!” from Jack and a “Praise Allah, Most Merciful and Kind!” from Imam warmed Carolyn almost more than Riddick’s arms around her.

“One of the big things got you? Riddick wouldn’t say. How bad are you hurt? You’re covered in that same blue stuff Riddick was. Isn’t that the blood from those things? Can you walk at all? Why—”

“Not now, child.” The Imam’s gentle rebuke, and probably heavy hand, was the only thing that saved Carolyn from Jack’s continued verbal assault, and Jack from the growl Carolyn could feel building in Riddick’s chest. She didn’t think he was angry at the kid, but all that gangly length made it hard for them to get to the cockpit. And they were all stressed beyond reason.

When Carolyn’s head lolled back against the headrest of the copilot’s chair, it felt almost as if it was happening to someone else’s body and not her own. Behind her she could hear Jack still peppering the Imam with questions as they buckled into their jump seats.

“You ready?” Riddick rumbled beside her.

With some surprise, she glanced down to see that muscle memory had kicked in at some point and she was properly strapped into her chair. She’d done it without looking at herself—without even thinking about it needing to be done.

“Guess so.”

Grunting, Riddick reached up to start the takeoff sequence.

Carolyn placed a bloodied hand on his arm. “Wait.” She took a slow breath, closed her eyes, and hummed. “Turn it off,” she said.

There was a beat when no one move or seemed to breathe, then the muscles under her hand shifted and the skiff powered down.

Behind her, Carolyn could hear the Imam and Jack moving in their seats. “What are you doing?” “Can we just get the hell out of here now?”

“We can’t leave…” was Riddick’s gravely answer.

Carolyn opened her eyes to meet his, still hidden behind their dark goggles. _Though there be monsters in the land_ , she mouthed, too tired and weak to sing the fierce joy building within her.

“…not without saying goodnight.”

The muscles under Carolyn’s hand twitched and thrummed as he brought the skiff up to full power. The still air filled with the scream of obsolete engines—and the creatures caught in their fiery wake.

Carolyn’s hand fell away from Riddick as they shared a smug, nearly feral, grin. The true black of space hurtled toward them, and Carolyn’s heart swelled in a way it hadn’t since she’d caught her first transport off her home planet. Artificial gravity and all, breaking atmo that first time had felt like being freed from the iron chains of her family’s expectations. She’d never gone back, not even for her grandmother’s funeral.

The planet under their feet could rip itself to shreds for all she cared. She hoped it did. And that its three suns burned whatever was left to ashes.

Caught in the sudden bubbling euphoria of escape, she rasped, “Think I’m gonna make it?”

“Dunno.” With his goggles still on, it was hard to tell where Riddick was looking, but Carolyn got the impression that he was splitting his attention between her and the nav when he said, “Hell of a lot questions, whoever we run into out there. What’re you gonna tell’em about me. Assuming you do make it.”

Her eyes were closed again, exhaustion quickly setting in, but she could hear the smirk in his voice—and the apprehension. He probably wouldn’t crash them all out of spite, and he couldn’t space them without spacing himself, but…

Both Jack and the Imam had worked themselves out of their harnesses as soon as the skiff had leveled out. Carolyn had heard the distinctive rustle and clank a four-point harness made being unlocked. One of them moved toward the back. Someone else joined her and Riddick in the tiny cockpit. The slight weight that pulled against the back of Carolyn’s chair said Jack, but it was recognizing the kid’s scent as the shift in the air brought it close that was startling. When had she committed these people’s scent to memory? How many did she now know and would never smell again? It was possible only Jack and the Imam (and Riddick) were now part of her, but the universe was never that kind.

“What do you want us to say?” Jack asked in response to Riddick’s question.

Twisting slowly, so slowly, in her seat, Carolyn cracked her eyes open to look at the kid. “We’ll tell them Riddick died.”

“He died somewhere on the planet,” Riddick himself added.

“Okay?” Carolyn raised a trembling and bloody hand to the one pulling on the back of her chair.

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

Carolyn patted the kid’s hand then slowly untwisted herself to face front again. Somewhere during the exchange, Riddick had lost his goggles. Their eyes met.

_I will not be afraid._

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Riddick's goodnight to the planet and nearly all of the dialogue from "Hell of a lot of questions..." is directly from _Pitch Black_ , but adapted to fit Carolyn's presence on the skiff.
> 
> A version of the song that Carolyn remembers can be found [here.](https://youtu.be/ObEbm03089w)
> 
> I'll probably never get around to writing a sequel to this story, so I can tell you that Riddick knows the song from his time at a Catholic orphanage on Earth. If/when Carolyn asks him about it, he may or may not confess that he's surprised he remembers it. He would have been very young when he learned it (not that he'd tell her that).
> 
> I know Imam's religion in PB/TCOR canon is officially Chrislam. I know Chrislam is supposed to be a blend of Christianity and Islam (although everything we've seen leans heavily towards Islam). Religions being what they are, however, I'd imagine that even if Chrislam is the more widely practiced, both Christianity and Islam still exist as separate and distinct religions, minor though they might be. In this story, Carolyn herself doesn't subscribe to any of the three, though they are, clearly, part of her history.
> 
> If you have other questions, please put them in the comments. I love questions.


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